


tautology

by SoyCaptain



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Gift Fic, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, M/M, Non-Explicit Masturbation, Nostalgia, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, human sexuality is complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 02:00:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18714238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoyCaptain/pseuds/SoyCaptain
Summary: There's a perverse, sure-fire way to keep him alive.(Gift to rein for the SH Anniversary Exchange!)





	tautology

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hearts_kun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_kun/gifts).



> This is really sloppy (and late!) and I apologize. For the exchange, the prompts were Welcome, Anniversary, or Nostalgia. Me, being the angsty bitch I am, chose nostalgia. You will see why. 
> 
> I hope you like it, rein! ily
> 
> Edited 9-21-19 for formatting because it was driving me nuts

He’s exchanged the sounds of the metropolis for a chorus of cicadas. He’s grateful for them. They parse the loneliness that comes at night. Omnipresent as the humidity that seeps through the cracks in his family home, settling heavy on his skin like pyroclastic ash fall. 

Tonight’s a blessing and a curse--and both because he sleeps solitary. Morgana had decided on a vacation to Tokyo when Haru came to visit the week prior. Haru extended the same courtesy to him, but the possibility of solitude had been more tantalizing than the sure reprieve of air conditioning. 

It’s not that he dislikes Morgana’s company--quite the opposite--but the poltergeist haunting his chest is his own burden. Hiding its stirrings at all hours is difficult, and sometimes Ren is afraid that the monster (is it fair to call it a monster?) will break through his seal and Morgana will twitch his ears at the disturbance. He’d advocate exorcism and Ren can’t incur the casualties just yet. 

And summer nights just smell like Goro Akechi. The sweaty weight of the air is mimetic, and Ren can feel their skintouch implied in its presence. Humidity mocks his recollection, spreading moisture across his flesh in a film of agonizing familiarity. In turn, the poltergeist knocks against the walls of his torso, eager and frenzied by the palpable memento. 

His stomach turns, kinetically provoking a sick heat in his groin. He tries to mimic the weight of his fingertips across his skin. How loaded the touch had been--almost as loaded as--No focus. The smell of his cologne--of course he wears cologne--co-mingling with the scent of coffee and teenage apprehension. 

Ren closes his eyes to aid the image. It was never truly dark in the city, but his memory seems even brighter than reality. How the shadows pooled in the dip of his collarbone. How utterly full he felt. 

Ren’s hand descends upon his moistened skin, traversing the expanse before settling on the source of his late-night angst. He lets his arousal drive his musings, as he knows where they will lead him anyway. The curl of his lip as he smiled into their kiss--Ren won’t worry if it’s genuine or not. With their foreheads pressed together, Ren wishes he could have felt the man’s pain before it was too late. 

They were quiet at first and Ren’s grateful for that. But the signal of first contact, the way he softly cursed when they joined. Ren finds himself desperately wishing they could have stayed like that forever. He knows how their story ends and God he can’t bear it. He makes a paltry attempt at recreating the sensation with his fingers. It’s too exact (the natural result of biofeedback) and not full enough, but it works enough to stir the nostalgia. 

“Goro,” he whispers as his pace quickens. The weight of the man’s hips knocking against his own frays his synapses. He feels it build; an action-potential in the waiting. Rhythmic in every way: the movements, the breathing, the wayward sighs. They’re synchronized, they’re perfect, and Ren grasps at his thigh to find the impact site of Goro’s fingertips. 

A moment of respite. An Elysiatic lullaby as he orgasms--euphoria filling the crevices and scar tissue for several seconds before it rips through him. Volatile. Bullet-like. 

The poltergeist triggers an avalanche and Ren is suffocating in it. The impact resounds through him as the credits roll on his memory. There’s no epilogue for them. Only a necrotizing frostbite-wound festering within him. 

Orgasmic waves easily transition to the seismic shuddering of a panic attack. He folds in on himself, using the position to muffle the pathetic noises coming from his throat. Ouroboros winds through his guts and stirs a nausea in place of the fading pleasure. He tries to anchor himself against the riptide by digging his nails into the exposed flesh of his legs. 

Guilt is a quiet, insidious disease. It’s terminal and Ren will bear it alone as long as he can. He’ll host the cancerous monster--yes, it’s a monster--behind his eyelids that wears Goro Akechi’s face. That has Goro Akechi’s hands and his voice. It’s what he deserves. It’s the only Goro Akechi he can manage to keep alive. 

And if he can only conjure him during moments of solitary self-gratification, then so be it. If he can only afford to ache in the privacy of night, then so be it. He’ll do it for him. He’ll do it for the one he failed. For the one he loved. 

Ren falls asleep when the adrenaline disperses. When the sound of gunshots and heartbeats resounding through his skull exits stage-left for the cicadas. A prelude and a coda. Ren falls asleep with a sheen of sweat and post-masturbatory success living on his thighs. Ren falls asleep with the numbness from before haunting his psyche, only accented by dashes of nostalgia and corporeal guilt. 

But Ren tucks it all away and falls asleep. 

Like usual.


End file.
